Serviceberry Leaves

Here's a closeup of the beautiful leaves from the serviceberry.

Autumn Outside My Window

A foggy Autumn morning outside my bedroom window.  It was gorgeous.  

The orange shrub on the right is a serviceberry.  Serviceberries are considered native to southwestern Pennsylvania.    

In shed related news, we have painted the shutters of the shed.  Well, Eric did.  They were the same color as the door, but I asked him to paint them black.  I love how they look.

The plant below is a fig.  I don't know what variety it is.  Someone I know has a fig tree that was supposedly brought over to the US from Sicily.  I took cuttings about 6 weeks ago and potted them up.

As you can see in the picture, the plant has sent out roots into the soil.  Next spring it can go in the ground and maybe start producing figs!  I had heard that fig plants were easy to take cuttings of, but I'm a little surprised at how fast and how well the cutting rooted.  I was concerned that it would rot before it could root, especially since the fall is not the best time to be rooting cuttings.

Fig Harvest

Today I "harvested" our final fig crop of the season -- one sweet little fig.  This was the one fig left on our fig tree after the first harvest.  It took about two weeks for the teeny, tiny fig to swell and ripen.

The ripened fruit was about the size of a quarter.  According to Stark Bros' website, Chicago Hardy fig trees produce medium-sized fruits.   Medium-sized?  If that's medium, I would hate to see what a small fruit looks like.  But I really can't complain, since this was the first year for our fig tree and I didn't even grow the tree for its fruit.

And, boy, was that fig sweet!

Looking forward to next year's harvest...

The Gazebo

When we moved into this house, there was a tiny concrete patio in the back that was overhung by four very large spruce trees.  The trees were too close to the house and totally cut us off from the rest of the back yard.  We had the trees cut down very shortly after we moved in.

The next year, we extended the tiny patio with a gravel pad.  It was a good stop-gap measure, but we knew we would need to do something longer term.  The dream was to have a covered porch like we had when we lived in Derwood, Maryland.  The covered porch in Derwood was actually a carport that we used as a porch in the summer months.  It was a really great size and in a great location on the house.  But I knew that reproducing it on this house was financially impossible for us.

The tiny concrete patio and the temporary gravel extension.  That's Nutmeg, the chihuahua, on the patio.  

So we bought a cloth and metal gazebo from KMart.  With the slightest stress, the cloth cover would tear.  After one or two seasons, we had to replace the cover.  And the metal started rusting almost immediately.  It was a clear case of "you get what you pay for."  The gazebo was a bit small for our needs, we always worried about a strong gust of wind picking it up and throwing it across the yard, and we could only use it during the summer months when the cover was on.  So the dream evolved.  We saved and planned, and in the Summer of 2012, the modified dream came true.

The first step was to have a new concrete patio poured.  I designed it to fit the outside edge of the gazebo.  That would, I hoped, make it feel like the gazebo was nestled into the garden, instead of sitting off from the garden.  When I saw the newly poured concrete patio, I was worried.  It looked enormous.

The new concrete patio, with the wooden forms still attached, and the fabric and metal gazebo, which was on it's way out the door.  

The next step was to order the gazebo.  Within three weeks, we had our new gazebo.  The installers arrived early in the morning and were gone before noon.  The first thing I did was carry the patio furniture into the gazebo and set it up.  By the time the evening rolled around, I already had strings of white twinkle lights strung up around the inside.

Just hours old.

Look at the view to that gorgeous shed!

A peek at the beautiful and fragrant cedar interior of the roof.

It has been three years since the patio and gazebo were installed.  It is hard for us to remember what the old situation was like.  The new gazebo allows us to eat or lounge outside any season of the year.  Most mornings, when the temperature is comfortable, I take my morning tea out to the gazebo.  This spring, I had my first pot of morning tea under the gazebo on March 14.  I don't recall the exact details, but it was probably cool.  I was probably grateful for the hot tea, but I know I was grateful for the cover over my head and the dry patio furniture.  In the fall, we will continue to eat outside and take tea under the gazebo until it gets too cold.  And on unseasonably warm days during the winter, we will carry the chair cushions out and settle in for a brief lounge on the patio.

It feels like we have an extra room in the house.

Boxes in Boxes

If there is one thing I have always loved, it is boxes.  There is something magical and mysterious about a box.  What does it hold?  What can it hold?  What was it built to hold?  Who stashed their treasures in the box before I found it.  What does it smell like inside?  (No, I'm not kidding.  Doesn't everybody sniff the insides of boxes?)  

If I had to describe my favorite kind of box it would be like this:  It is a vintage wooden box with its original, somewhat battered finish.  It has some flaws and needs a little love.  If it has some neat hardware, that's a bonus.  Interior compartments add to the allure, but are not required.  Extra credit for secret compartments.  Under no circumstances will it have been cleaned up and restored by anybody else.  

I bought this box earlier this summer at an antique store for $7.20 plus tax.  It totally matches that description.  You can see that the right front corner of the lid is warped.  It also had a homely fuchsia decal on the top that I did not fancy.  

The hinges need some work, it is missing the tray that would have once sat on the braces inside, and the lock has been removed.  But it is a solid wood box.  It has a paper lining, and Alice Crane wrote her name on the lid. (I frequently find boxes that someone has marked as their property.  I find that really charming.)

The warped spot on the lid will be left alone.  You can see that I have already removed the decal from the top.  I'll leave the missing lock in its missing state.  And eventually, I'll have to do something about the hinges.  But in the meantime, the big annoyance to me was the missing tray.  I have a few wooden box trays without boxes that I hoped would fit, but no luck there.  So I cut up some scrap cardboard and made a tray.  Unfortunately, I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't measure properly, so the result was less than satisfactory.

I searched online for directions on box making.  Most of what I found was not instructional, with a few exceptions.  I did find this and this and this.  

Armed with so little information, a lot of false confidence, and a brand new pack of binder's board, I dove into making a second tray for the box.  The resulting tray was beautiful, if not technically perfect.  It did a nice job of holding my pens or whatever and it fit into the wooden box.  I call that a success.  As I was admiring my finished work, I realized that I should have made a partition in the tray to corral other small do-dads besides pens.  I briefly contemplated adding one on top of the existing tray, but then I got all cocky and decided to make a partitioned tray that nested inside my new tray.

And viola!

I sized the partitioned tray to hold ink samples and nibs.  Or whatever.

I'm so pleased with my success that I want to make custom partitioned trays for my desk drawers and for every box I own -- which is a considerable number of boxes.

Fig!

First, let me state for the record that I have never eaten a fig, aside from in Fig Newtons.  I was so tempted to grow a fig tree because I know several folks who have figs and the plants are beautiful.  The leaves are so unique and interesting.  I resisted the temptation for as long as I could and then last fall, I broke down and ordered a Chicago Hardy fig from Stark Brothers.  I requested that they ship it in the spring, and when the little stick arrived in the mail, I popped it into a 5 gallon pot.  

Chicago Hardy figs are hardy here in Southwestern Pennsylvania (zone 6B), but a particularly hard winter may cause the tree to be killed back to the ground, requiring the tree to regrow from its root stock.  We originally planned to keep our fig in the pot and bring it inside every fall, until it got too big to bring indoors.  But halfway through this summer, we decided to put it in the ground.  We decided we would rather gamble with a small fig tree now, rather than waiting a few years and then trying to plant a massive tree that we had been coddling for years.  

Early this summer, not long after the tree sprouted leaves and some growth at the base, I noticed two tiny figs on the tree.  The one has been steadily getting larger.  The other day I noticed that it looked like this:

You can see that it had taken on a little color and it was no longer sticking straight out from the tree -- it had started to sag a little.  On Sunday, we picked it and cut it open.

It was very small, much smaller than I thought a ripe fig would be.  It looked kinda gross and wormy.  Our friends were over, so we shared with them.  None of the four of us had ever tasted a fresh fig.  When I popped my quarter in my mouth, it was sweet and delicious!  The four of us were pleasantly surprised with the taste.  I did wind up with a few small fig seeds in my teeth, just like the Fig Newtons, but the comparison ends there.  Suddenly, I am looking forward to future crops of figs.

There is the other small fig on the tree still.  I'm hoping that it will get larger and ripen before the first frost. The average first frost in Southwestern Pennsylvania is October 19, so our little fig will have about a month and a half to fatten up and ripen.

Fingers crossed.

Beezus (aka Bea)

August 2003 - August 25, 2015

Nicknames: Beezus Mary Margaret, Bea Ann, Bean, Beanie Jean, Little Miss Tortie Pants

Bea will always be a kitten in my heart.  I was fostering for Animal Friends the summer I met her, in late August.  I saw my contact from the shelter at Bark in the Park.  She told me then that she had 3 kittens for me to foster.  They were 3 weeks old.  When I met the kittens, they were all so dear.  I still remember them so clearly.  There was a orange and white boy, a calico girl, and Little Miss Tortie Pants, Beezus.  Her official name was Beezus, but we always called her Bea.  

Four months old

For some reason, I fell in love with Bea pretty quickly and started taking her from our foster room out into the rest of the house and introducing her to my cats.  One day, I took her into the bathroom with me when I showered.  When I stepped out of the shower, she popped up from her meatloaf position on the rug and meowed at me, as if she was delighted to see me.  I was hooked.  

Several years ago, our vet palpated Bea's kidneys and observed that they felt unusual.  He did an ultrasound and diagnosed her with Polycystic Kidney Disease.  Since then, we have been monitoring her kidney values through periodic bloodwork and doing our best to help out her kidneys with a prescription kidney diet and daily subcutaneous fluids.

Earlier this year, the vet noted that her kidney values were climbing.  That lead to more frequent bloodwork.  At her previous visit, the vet told me that her BUN number had not gone up, indicating that she was probably still feeling well.  But her Creatinine level indicated that she was in end-stage kidney disease.  He warned us that she would have only weeks to one or two months left.

Up until Sunday, she had been feeling fine and then -- BOOM -- on Monday morning she started vomiting and went into hiding.  It was pretty obvious that she was feeling miserable.  We had her euthanized Tuesday afternoon.  She was always a fighter and would always struggle when being examined, but she didn't even fight when the vet was giving her the injection.  

"Don't you just hate this wallpaper, Mom?"

This one was the death that we had the longest to prepare for, but it has been the hardest to bear.  I guess it is the cumulative effect of losing 4 cats in such a short time.  It is hard to believe that we went from 7 cats in January to 3 cats today.  

Eric and I were laughing the other night about how it used to be -- sitting in the bathroom and realizing that there were no less than 5 cats in there with me! Now, the max we can have in one room is two, since Tuck and Clara don't get along.  

I spent Tuesday evening cleaning and doing pet laundry.  I got rid of an extra litter box and cleaned the entire room.  It was very therapeutic.  That, combined with the change of weather, I feel like it is the end of an era.  I'm thinking about vacations with Eric (something we have not done in a LONG time) and getting work done on the house.  In other words, I'm thinking about changes.  Not sure what, but I feel the need for them. 

Little John

2004? - August 21, 2015

Nicknames: John John, Johnny Jo, JJ, Jon-a-Mac...

Little John was one of three kittens found living with their feral mom under a porch in Washington, DC.  Alley Cat Allies trapped mom and babies and had them altered.  The vet who performed the surgery thought that the three kittens were to be released back outdoors with mom, so he eartipped their left ears.  However, Alley Cat Allies thought the wild kittens could be tamed.  They shipped the three boys off to a college student, living in a dorm.  The idea was that the students would be able to give the kittens lots of attention and help tame them.

Eventually, the college student moved on and the kittens (by now full grown cats) needed another foster home and help finding a permanent home.  Robin, Tuck and Little John came to live with Eric and I, while we were living in Derwood, MD.  Robin was outgoing; Tuck was shy, but came around quickly; John was painfully shy and wouldn't do anything without Tuck.  Eventually, Robin got paired with another cat and the pair were adopted.  We tried for a long time to get a home for Tuck and John, but they did not show well.  We had multiple people express interest only to back down later.  Finally, when we were moving from Maryland, the boys got shipped to a new foster home.  The new foster mom thought she might like to adopt them, but when she got sick, the boys had to be shipped to another foster home.  Finally, Alley Cat Allies called us and asked if we would take them permanently.  Alley Cat Allies arranged to transport the boys to Pittsburgh for us.

John was a sweet, playful, happy cat.  He was acrobatic and energetic.  He got along VERY WELL with some cats in our household, but fought bitterly with others.  To keep peace in the household, doors were kept closed and cats kept separated.

Thank goodness for the wall, holding the basket and him upright.

John formed quick attachments with several of our foster cats, and when Duncan was adopted, he and John formed a very strong bond.

Yes, he is doing THAT to Duncan!

John had an odd fabric obsession.  He would steal bath towels from the laundry room or fabric from my sewing room and drag them around the house.  Eventually, he and I reached an agreement.  I allowed him to keep several practice quilt squares and he stopped stealing stuff of mine.  For the rest of his life with us, several times a day we had to collect the quilt squares from the first floor and drop them down the stairs to the basement so he would be able to carry them up again.

Little John and his fellow pea, Tuck.

Tuck and John were like two peas in one pod.  They slept together and played together.  They were best friends and soul mates.  It is impossible to talk about John without talking about Tuck.

Several months ago, we noticed that John was not eating as well.  It got steadily worse.  Finally, we took him to the vet.  The vet diagnosed him with possible Lymphoma.  To be certain and to determine the best course of treatment, the vet would need to do an ultrasound and biopsy.  At the ultrasound, the vet discovered masses on John's liver and both adrenal glands, in addition to the lymph node.  We opted not to do the biopsy and not to proceed with chemotherapy.  

John was at the vet for about 4 hours that day.  He came home exhausted and promptly went to Macy, the dog, for comfort. Tuck was there too, but Macy was the primary source of John's comfort.  At one point, both John and Tuck were loving on Macy.  It was really adorable and touching to see.

We put John on steroids, tried to entice him to eat, and waited.  The wait ended last Friday.

Tuck seems to be coping well with the loss of his brother.  Tuck was always the stronger, more confident cat of the two.  John always relied more on the comfort provided by Tuck.  Everyone is getting more loving from us now -- for both our comfort and theirs.

Sweet, beautiful Little John will live forever in my mind as the cat on the railing (picture above) and the cat with the blankie in his mouth.

Sarris

1994 - May 5, 2015

Sarris was the second cat we ever adopted.  We had put our first cat, Rajah, down less than a month before and we had just moved into our newly rented duplex.  As soon as the movers left, we sat down and felt how empty the house was without any pets.  My mother had given me a coupon for money off a pet adoption at one of the Pittsburgh animal shelters, so we hopped up off the couch and went looking.  Our first two stops yielded nothing exciting.  The cats were all sleeping and didn't seem very promising.  At our third stop, we saw a kitty named Peaches.  He was awake and seemed interested in us.  Eric went off to get a shelter worker.  I leaned in and started talking to the kitty.  He stretched his paw through the cage and patted me on the nose.  I was SOLD!

Peaches was not a suitable name for this kitty.  He needed a name that was more befitting his personality.  Sarris is named after a local chocolate candy company.  We were struggling, as we always do, to pick a name for this sweet kitty.  Standing in front of the candy counter at Kaufmann's one of us suggested Godiva as a joke.  That name was just too grand for this timid little guy.  The logical next step was a less grand, but equally sweet chocolate name, Sarris.  

Shy, sweet, devoted, timid, athletic and affectionate.  Sarris was MY cat when Eric was travelling, but he quickly attached himself to Eric when Eric came off the road.  For over 20 years, we have slept with Sarris between us.

For the last several years, Sarris has been very slowly declining.  He was nothing more than skin and bones, but he still seemed to enjoy life and he continued to eat well.  He required fluids every night to help out his ailing kidneys and we offered him food every chance we got.  He slept a lot!  But he kept on going.

The night before we had him put down, he was very weak and didn't seem to have his normal interest in life.  I always thought that it would be crystal clear when it was his time, but the signs were subtle.  However, you can't spend so many years with a pet and not see the signs.

Despite the fact that Baxter and Sarris were the quietest, least active members of our household, our house feels so much quieter without them.

Baxter

Late Summer 1995 - April 22, 2015

Baxter was born to a feral mom and dad cat in Charlottesville, VA.  Eric's cousin had been feeding the family and when Baxter decided that he wanted to come inside, she obliged.  But she couldn't keep him as a house cat.  She offered him to us and we eagerly accepted.  For almost twenty years, Baxter was a (mostly) quiet, charming, and sometimes playful constant in our lives.

A week before we had Baxter euthanized, the vet told us that Baxter had a mass in his abdomen that would most likely (and quickly) become a problem.  Then I discovered that he had a mass on his skull that was pressing on his eye.  He had been acting uncomfortable for several days and when I found the lump on his head I knew it couldn't be good.  The vet was so kind and offered to put Baxter on medication to give him some relief from pain and give us some time.  But I just didn't think it made sense to prolong the inevitable.

I'll always remember Baxter as a playful kitten and as a self-elected greeter of guests in our powder room.

Architecture

Architecture theme photograph for my camera club's May meeting...

Daffodil Gardens

After I spent an exhausting morning lugging camera equipment around and crawling around on the ground taking pictures of wildflowers with my camera club, Eric and I went with a friend to see Joe Hamm's daffodil gardens this past Saturday afternoon. 

Joe's daffodil gardens

Joe Hamm is a daffodil grower in Hopewell Township, Washington County.  He is a member of the American Daffodil Society and grows over 1,500 varieties of daffodils on his farm.  Also at Joe's place this Saturday was an American Daffodil Society show and flower arrangements by a local garden club. The gardens are free and open to the public during the month of April.  

From the Miniatures category

For me, the afternoon in the daffodil garden meant more crawling around on my knees taking photos.  Fortunately, the weather was cool and cloudy, so I didn't have to deal with heat and sun.  

One of the volunteers explained to us that daffodil bloom times are divided into 6 overlapping periods.  Because it was late April by the time we got to the gardens, we saw the late blooming daffodils.  Many of the varieties were past their prime or were already done blooming.

I regret that we came so late in the display and that we didn't take more notes of variety names.  If we go again another year, I would like to go earlier and I would like to plan to pay more attention to variety names.  As it was, Eric and I got a good idea of what we like to see in a daffodil and what we want to look for when we buy bulbs for our own yard.

A Trip to Cedar Creek Park

My camera club took a field trip to Cedar Creek Park in Belle Vernon this past Saturday.  Every year we try to get there around the same time.  This year the weather was cool and cloudy, but we were fortunate that the rain held off the entire morning.

It seems that the wildflowers we went to see were not as far along as in previous years, but there was still plenty to see if you took the time to look.  Two prime examples were the jack-in-the-pulpit and the trout lily.   I knew they would both be in bloom (or at least they had been the last two years we went), but they are not brightly colored or particularly showy.  Many of my fellow club members walked right past them without seeing them.  When I pointed them out, the other photographers were happy to take photos, but would never have noticed them on their own.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Because the jack-in-the-pulpit is mostly green with some brown, it is hard to see.  Also, the jack-in-the-pulpit does not colonize an area quite the way some other wildflowers do.

trout lily

The trout lily flower is yellow with brown on the outside of the petals.  In cool, cloudy weather it tends to keep its pretty little face turned down, so it can be hard to see.  But it does form colonies of thick, fleshy, mottled, almond-shaped leaves.  The patch of leaves is pretty easy to spot, but without showy, colorful flowers, it doesn't attract immediate attention.  Unlike trillium, woodland phlox and Virginia bluebells.

red trillium

white trillium

woodland phlox

Me in action
(taken by another club member)

By the end of the morning, I was sore and exhausted from climbing up and down the paths, getting up and down from my knees and lugging my camera equipment around.  But this was just the first half of my day...

Here's a link to part 2 of last Saturday.